


Unobtrusive Happiness

by AppalachianApologies



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Autism, Autism Spectrum, Autistic Spencer Reid, Emotional, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotions, Exhaustion, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Psychological Trauma, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, but it's like, but there's not a blatant suicide attempt, but worry about everything else, don't do it if it's going to trigger you, don't read it if you're struggling im not gonna be offended or anything, emotional exhaustion, like seriously, listen it's very emotional, lots of, nor is there any character death so don't worry about that one, okay?, please be smart about reading this, which should totally be a tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:47:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26415154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AppalachianApologies/pseuds/AppalachianApologies
Summary: Spencer struggles with some dark thoughts. At the moment, he's just slowly making it through the motions of living.*This includes very blatant discussions of suicide, suicidal ideation, depression, and self-harm. If this is at all triggering for you, for the love of God, don't freaking read this. Your health is more important than this by far.
Comments: 23
Kudos: 154





	Unobtrusive Happiness

**Author's Note:**

> This includes very blatant discussions of suicide, suicidal ideation, depression, and self-harm. If this is at all triggering for you, for the love of God, don't freaking read this. Your health is more important than this by far.
> 
> Many people seek out fanfiction to help cope with their own similar scenarios. If you fall into this category, I am going to request you to make sure you're in a healthy enough state of mind to read a story including the aforementioned topics. Please, please, don't hesitate to press back, and leave this story. 
> 
> If you or someone you know is feeling suicidal, please don't hesitate to call a hotline for your country. I have lists for you [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines) and [here.](https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines)
> 
> I love all of you, and you're not alone <3

_ “There is nothing like deep breaths after laughing that hard. Nothing in the world like a sore stomach for the right reasons.” ~Stephen Chbosky _

So. It goes like this.

Spencer wakes up with the thought, but he figures that isn’t entirely accurate. Does it still count as waking up with the thought if he fell asleep with it? If he passed out from exhaustion with it? 

Spencer wakes up with the thought.

He wants to die.

Spencer wants to die.

It’s the thought that’s stuck with him for the past few days, weeks, months.

He tells the ivory pawn that he’s been struggling. With a soft voice, Spencer tells the chess pieces of his brain that he surely wishes he were dying.

Spencer whispers to Sir Conan Doyle that killing himself takes far too much work. Even his antidepressants don’t give him enough energy.

Sir Conan Doyle tells him that he knows the feeling. He tells Spencer that he certainly doesn’t miss the feeling either.

Spencer stands next to a cheap plastic chair and tells the subway rat that he doesn’t hit his thighs to punish himself, he just hits his thighs to understand himself. 

The subway rat asks Spencer who he’s trying to prove himself too, and Spencer doesn’t have a good answer for them. Bored, the subway rat scurries away, and Spencer silently hopes that they find a bit of food for their troubles.

Spencer doesn’t hold onto the poles on the subway train. Though he still silently hopes to contract  stenotrophomonas maltophilia from one of the homeless people resting on the bench seat on the carriage. However even then, he knows that it probably won’t be fatal, as long as he stays away from immuno compromising ailments. 

Perhaps, he figures, he can contract meningitis from the public transport system. Even as a healthy adult, that could kill him. Then his family couldn’t fault him for dying, right? Suicide would be his fault, but meningitis could just be from unfortunate circumstances. 

The subway screeches to a stop, sending a few jolts of psychosomatic pain through Spencer’s head. There’s nothing physically wrong with him.

No, physically, all that there is to worry about is his below average BMI. The Body Mass Index can be used to help diagnose underlying health issues, but cannot alone be used to diagnose an illness.

Spencer reminds himself that every time he steps on the scale in his therapist’s office, who is determined to diagnose him with an eating disorder. He doesn’t know how to explain to her that it’s not about the food, it’s just him.

Food just isn’t too much of an issue when he wants to die. That’s all it is.

Today, his therapist asks him if he left the house in the past four days.

Spencer doesn’t feel like talking today, but he still finds it in him to reply. No, he has not.

There’s no reason to leave the house when he wants to die. He figures that dying at home is much better than dying in the cracked streets of Virginia.

She asks him if he’s had any suicidal thoughts, and his silence is enough of an answer.

Spencer misses the subway rat and their conversation. The subway rat doesn’t judge him like his therapist does.

She just sighs and tells Spencer that judgement is part of her job.

She asks if he’s had thoughts of self harm.

Spencer asks her to specify what counts as self harm.

His therapist doesn’t specify. Instead, she then asks him if he acted on those thoughts.

He asks her to clarify again.

This time, she asks him the method of how he hurt himself.

Only Sir Conan Doyle knows the answer to that one. 

Underneath his pants lie pretty bruises, with more color than anything else in Spencer’s life. It’s difficult to explain that he’s only doing it to understand himself better.

Below Spencer’s sleeves lie bite marks, but only because he was confused and hurt, and no one else seemed to understand.

His therapist asks him if he’s feeling suicidal right now.

There’s no reason to lie. He doesn’t even have enough energy to lie. So Spencer thinks back to the large subway rat and tells her, Yes. Yes, he’s feeling suicidal.

Yes, he wants to die.

If it weren’t so much fucking work, Spencer would leave right now and stand in the middle of the road.

If he wasn’t such a coward, he’d take his Smith & Wesson, put it against his temple and pull the trigger. Follow in the footsteps of the woman he loved.

If he wasn’t such a disappointment, Spencer would find his old dealer and kill himself while floating above the mortal plane he’s forced to live in.

She asks him if he’s talked to anyone since four days ago.

Apparently ghosts and subway rats do not count.

In that case, the answer is no. 

Spencer would like to die now. He’s quite tired of all of the living his body is still doing. He’d much rather be buried six feet under.

Actually, he’d want his body to be donated to science. Maybe some med students can dissect his cadaver and learn more about the human body.

His therapist tells him that she knows he’s against the idea, but a hospital is the next step for him.

The next step.

That would imply him taking any steps. Spencer doesn’t want to take any steps, he doesn’t want to go anywhere but away. If he could, he’d stay sitting here forever, until he dies from dehydration and his skin shrivels up like the old victims of unsubs.

Spencer replies, and says that he doesn’t think a hospital would help.

She counters, stating that he’s not going to have a choice at this point. She says something along the lines of ‘critical care,’ but Spencer just thinks that the only thing critical that he needs to do is kill himself.

He gets asked if he has someone who he trusts that can take him, or if she needs to call an ambulance.

Spencer thinks long and hard at that question. It’s more weighted than she thinks it is. Someone that he can trust.

Spencer doesn’t trust. He learned that long ago, but for all he knows, it could’ve been yesterday.

There’s only so many times that his mother can hit him while she’s in a fit before he stops trusting the people around him. There’s only so many times that the woman who is supposed to love him unconditionally, forgets of his existence, not realizing that he’s been gone for three weeks. There’s only so many times that his father can walk away before he loses trust.

It only took once for that last one.

Spencer tells her that he’d rather not take an ambulance.

The American healthcare system really is abysmal, even for government workers, and he’d rather not pay a couple thousand dollars for a short trip to a psych ward.

His therapist asks him who she should call.

Spencer picks a random contact out of the seven he has saved on his phone, and doesn’t check who it is before handing his phone over. He doesn’t feel much like talking anymore. 

He doesn’t feel like much anymore.

Spencer wonders if the subway rat will miss him. He knows that he will miss them. He wonders if Sir Conan Doyle will miss him. But if Spencer’s being completely honest, he’s a bit jealous of Sir Doyle.

After all, he’s dead, while Spencer’s still stuck in this world.

Spencer’s phone appears back in his hand, and suddenly his therapist is asking if he’d like a glass of water. 

He thinks about how it’s actually astoundingly difficult to drown himself with a glass of water. Spencer replies that no, he would not like a glass of water.

She tells him that the hospital will be good for him. That it’s going to help him. That the hospital will be able to give him the care he needs.

That’s what he told his mom.

Spencer doesn’t need extra care.

He needs to die, but he doesn’t think that asking his therapist for a suicide bag would help his cause at the moment. Perhaps he can just grab some helium the next time he’s free.

Spencer rocks back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, until a hand is set on his shoulder.

The only reason he bothers to look up is because he knows his therapist is still sitting across from him, legs crossed, hand on her knee.

Rossi looks like he’d just cried, and Spencer wonders why. He assumes that another one of his loved ones has died.

That’s something that he and Rossi have in common.

Offering Spencer his messenger bag, Rossi says something to his therapist, but Spencer isn’t listening. He’s thinking about how tired he is.

He’s thinking about how happy he could be without life.

He’s thinking about death, and how it’s been waiting for him with open arms.

Rossi steers him out of the room with a single hand on his shoulder.

When Spencer sits in the car, he misses the suspicious noises that plague the subway system. He misses the strange people, and their even stranger stories.

He misses his friend the subway rat.

Rossi’s car is over forty years old.

Spencer wills it to crash into oncoming traffic. A quick hit from his head to the dashboard, or maybe some glass could find its way to his carotid. Perhaps a broken rib could pierce his fragile little organs.

Oh, how he wants to die so much. Sadly, he doesn’t even have enough energy to reach over to jerk the steering wheel.

Instead, he suffices to just dreaming about dying.

Rossi is kind.

Rossi is the one who puts his hand back on Spencer’s shoulder, bringing him through double doors, into an elevator, and up seven stories.

Spencer thinks that he’d like to die now.

He’s quite tired of living.

Someone takes his messenger bag, and he can’t bring himself to care.

Hands encourage him to walk into a hallway, but instead Spencer just turns around.

Spencer tells Rossi that he always knew he’d go back to prison.

The old man replies with a frown, attempting to convince him that this isn’t the same. He’s not back in prison.

But Spencer just shakes his head.

Not that type of prison, he tells him.

His body has been in prison, and it never really came back.

And now it’s time for his mind to join it.

_ “Happiness is the secret to all beauty. There is no beauty without happiness.” ~Christian Dior _

**Author's Note:**

> The link I used to find bacteria on the subway lines is [here.](http://graphics.wsj.com/patho-map/?sel=stn_311)
> 
> Chat with me on my [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/appalachianapologies) (AppalachianApologies). My asks (including anon) and dm's are always open.
> 
> Many people seek out fanfiction to help cope with their own similar scenarios. If you fall into this category, I am going to request you to make sure you're in a healthy enough state of mind to read a story including the aforementioned topics. Please, please, don't hesitate to press back, and leave this story. 
> 
> If you or someone you know is feeling suicidal, please don't hesitate to call a hotline for your country. I have lists for you [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines) and [here.](https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines)
> 
> You deserve to be alive just as much as the characters you've fallen in love with. Reaching out can be the most difficult thing that you do, but if you're feeling suicidal, please do so. 
> 
> Each and every one of you deserve to live on this planet. Suicide is not, and will never be, the answer. 
> 
> Stay safe, and I love each and every one of you <3


End file.
